I was sad to read about the death of Richard Griffiths, whom most readers will remember as the heavily-built actor from the Harry Potter films and the hugely successful stage play The History Boys.

A few years ago, Richard was a guest at one of my Elstree film evenings at the BBC Elstree Centre and he was certainly an entertaining man.

He told me early in his screen career he appeared in Greystoke at Elstree Studios and was required to jump some distance in a jungle scene.

He was not keen on heights or the thought of a man his size jumping, but the director felt it looked better not to use a stunt man.

Eventually, Richard agreed and ended up in hospital for weeks.

Richard had an awful childhood and a glandular disorder caused the weight gain that meant his later years were spent in increasingly poor health.

I also saw him in the stage play Equus. While I was admiring his acting skills and stage presence, many of the young ladies in the audience seemed uninterested and I realised they were waiting for Daniel Radcliffe’s nude scene.

I guess the moral of that story is never act with children, animals or naked hearthrobs.

The other evening I had the pleasure to present a screening of the old Hammer classic The Devil Rides Out at the University of Hertfordshire campus theatre as part of a short Elstree season. It was good fun to see it on the big screen.

The film was filmed at Elstree between August and September 1967 and on location in the area  including the Edgwarebury Hotel, Barnet Lane and High Canons, near Well End.

The budget was £285,000, which was a modest budget even then, but today it would cost ten times that amount without a blink of the eye and without any stars.

The film starred Christopher Lee, who opted to play the good guy in this supernatural tale of a devil-worshipping coven.

His partner was played by a now forgotten actor named Leon Greene, who physically looked a tough guy.

However, his voice apparently did not suit his image so it was dubbed by a well-known actor named Patrick Allen.

When The Devil Rides Out was released in America the distribution company got nervous about its title, assuming the Yanks would think it was a cowboy movie, so they changed it to The Devil’s Bride.

When I was arranging a special plaque ceremony for Christopher at Elstree in 2008, I asked him which films he would like named on the plaque. The Devil Rides Out was the only one he chose and he said it remained one of his favourites — although he wished it could be remade so he could play the role as an older man.

The film was based on a novel written by Dennis Wheatley who was a very popular author and sold millions of copies of his supernatural thrillers.

Dennis once told me after watching the film he was minded to write a fan letter, which he never usually did.

It was to the actor playing the baddie who was the suave, urbane screen villain Charles Gray who went on to play menacing roles in a number of films, including a Bond movie.

Dennis did not know his home address so after attending the premiere, sent his letter care of the Hammer Film Company in London.

A few days later it was returned with the note: “This person is not known at this address” despite the fact he had just starred in one of their films.

The Devil Rides Out was shot on Stages 8 and 9 at Elstree, which have recently been upgraded into modern television studios that are leased to the BBC. The popular afternoon programme Pointless is one of the first productions to use Stage 8.

Personally, I think it would be great if the studio erected plaques at each stage entrance so people attending recordings could see what has been filmed there during the past 50 years.

Finally, it is interesting to read the figures on how old films re-released at the cinema perform financially.

The figures for UK cinemas in 2012 show the 3D version of Titanic scoring a whopping
£11 million and Star Wars — The Phantom Menace more than £4 million.

The taste for much older films appears to be far lower with a fully remastered, digitally enhanced Lawrence Of Arabia grossing only £74,000 — just beaten by a 70th anniversary release of Casablanca.

That’s a great pity, as films need to be seen at least once on the big screen for which they were made.

However, if they ever make a biopic about my life, I’ve no hope as it will go straight to video.

And even using the word video is now as outdated as saying 'I got the television working by giving it a knock to loosen the valves', or 'I rushed out of the cinema before they played the national anthem'. Happy days.